Welcome to NATO

TIRANA, April 6 – Albania together with Croatia joined NATO and became NATO’s 27th and 28th member nations.
Macedonia continues to pursue membership in NATO, but Greece consistently blocks it. At the beginning of the North Atlantic Council summit Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer welcomed the Heads of State and Government of Albania and Croatia at their first NATO Summit as members of the Alliance.
NATO marked 60 years of operation by welcoming two new countries – Albania and Croatia – to the alliance during a ceremony in Strasbourg, France.
The Western allies established NATO as a defense pact against the Soviet Union on April 4, 1949, in Washington.
The United States maintains the Washington Treaty, and President Obama passed copies of the treaty to the leaders of Albania and Croatia.
“We are very excited about your participation,” the president said. “We are proud to have you as Allies.”
“In these past 60 years, NATO has contributed to an unprecedented period of peace, freedom and prosperity for all its citizens,” said NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer. “It is a testimony to what can be achieved by a transatlantic community that acts with a clear sense of common purpose.”
The bureaucratic act in Washington earlier last week completed a year-long process involving the ratification of their accession by existing NATO allies.
The two countries are also aspiring to become European Union members, with Croatia being much ahead Albania, likely to get membership by 2011.
Albanian Defense Minister Gazmend Oketa said his country’s membership would be “a positive card which will help Albania to more rapidly approach the European Union.”
“We don’t consider membership in NATO as a final station but as a constant work process with duties and responsibilities,” he said.
The 60th anniversary of the Washington Treaty was a time of reflection for the alliance, Scheffer said. “At the signing ceremony … one of the statesmen present expressed his hope that this treaty between North America and Europe would become a ‘permanent creation,'” Scheffer said. “Today, we can say with considerable pride that his hopes have come true.”
The Secretary General noted that Albania and Croatia’s membership in the Alliance is the result of long years of hard work, during which both countries have shown a relentless drive to complete the necessary reforms. “Albania and Croatia have well-earned their place at our table”, he said.
President Barack Obama greeted the two new members of NATO: “We are very excited about your participation”, President Obama said. “We are proud to have you as Allies”.
President Obama’s last question at NATO before heading to Prague was from an Albanian journalist from Tirana. Obama praised both Albania and Croatia for “making extraordinary efforts at reform to see this day come about, ” and to the people of both states for their “hard work” that has helped stabilize the Balkans.
The full membership of Croatia and Albania, agreed at the 2008 summit in Bucharest, inches the Balkans closer to the borderless idea of Europe, and further from the brutal wars of the 1990s. A decade ago, parts of Croatia were still in embers. Albania had barely emerged from the imprisoning reign of Enver Hoxha, who made his barricaded country the North Korea of Europe.
Now, both states are sending troops and equipment to Afghanistan, both have conducted robust rebuilding campaigns, and both are EU suitor nations. Croatia’s Adriatic coast has again become a tourist place of choice in Europe. Tirana’s downtown now sports streets full of fashionable cafes.
In some ways, Albania, which first broached NATO status in 1992, had further to go to secure the spot.
In the Balkan region of Europe, Serbia, Macedonia, and Bosnia are still seeking NATO status. In the region, NATO is popularly seen as a stepping stone to European integration; in Europe, it is viewed as aiding a future free of parochial and inward-looking nationalism, and of open borders and trade.